University Wide News

Networking

Mirapoint E-mail Server

Upgraded system to improve system performance during times when numerous connections were being made in the day.

Phenix City Network Reconfiguration

Legacy network equipment was removed from the Phenix City campus network on March 26, 2014. Reconfiguration of existing equipment now provides a more efficient connection to Troy University’s electronic resources and the Internet, and allows maintenance contracts to extend to all network equipment.

Operations

AT&T

Due to the GL conversion all account numbers changed and many location codes were generated. As a result, the user defined labels had to be updated for about 500 University cell phones. This updated information allows IT to pull a report of the bill to send out to the end-user’s reducing about 1 day of work from the cell phone billing process.

Systems

VISIX - AXISTV

A new server was installed and Axis TV was upgraded and migrated to the new server. The AxisTV server pushes content to the TV Displays at the Troy, Montgomery, and Dothan campuses.

McAfee Frontend Appliances

Upgraded the McAfee frontend appliances for the University email system.

Web

IT Innovation Lab

A new website for university students and employees will be available in the near future. The site will serve as conduit between IT and our customers to provide them with more information about current and upcoming projects. Details and demonstrations will be provided via this site. The core purpose of this project is to encourage collaboration by soliciting feedback from our end-users prior to the deployment of new products.

Technical Services and eSystems

Windows 7 Deployment (Troy)

Technical Services continues to assess XP computers on Troy campus. 153 computers have been upgraded from XP to Windows 7 in various offices on Troy campus.

Windows 7 Deployment (Global Campus)

Over 200 computers with end of life Windows XP Operating System at over 20 Global Campus locations have been updated to Windows 7.

Adobe Sales Meeting

On February 4, 2014, Technical Services participated in a meeting with Troy University’s Adobe Representative and Sales Manager. The meeting was to discuss changes within Adobe purchasing, licensing and contracts.

Digital Display Upgrade

On February 14, 2014, Technical Services assisted Howard Computers and Visix with the OS upgrade and install of four Visix players on Troy campus, which included, Adams Administration, Trojan Center and Shackelford Hall for the student dorms. The displays will be used to broadcast weather, news, local emergency notices, university announcements as well as departmental announcements.

Apple Returns

On March 19, worked with Apple and SGA office to return four iMacs. The order was duplicated by Apple. A Return Specialist account was created in order to process the RMA return. Apple eventually approved the RMA and the iMacs were picked up on March 21, 2014.

Reviewing New Lenovo Laptops

The week of February 10, 2014, Technical Services evaluated two new Lenovo laptops which are the “L” versions. These “L” laptops could replace the “T” versions if they meet all of Troy’s expectations. The week of February 24, 2014, Technical Services completed the evaluation of the two Lenovo laptops which are the “L” versions and returned the units to Lenovo. These “L” versions met all of Troy’s expectations including a decrease in pricing. After the evaluation and price considerations, the IT Department will post the “L” model laptops as the new standard laptops. The university will be saving roughly $175 per set by changing to the “L” models.

Docking Station for T540 laptops

The week of February 17, 2014, Technical Services tested a docking station designed for the new T540 laptop models. There was an issue regarding the monitors attached to the docking station involving random blank screens. After several conversations with Lenovo and thoroughly troubleshooting the issue we believe a fix has been discovered through a firmware update designed for the docking station. This solution will be vital and save countless hours of troubleshooting in the future, once the new line of laptops begin dispersing across campus.

Parature Dashboard Development

During the month of February 2014, eSystems continued working on the development of forms that could be utilized in the deployment of a reporting dashboard for Parature. The dashboard has been released and we are working though bugs in the feature.

EchoSign Workflow Development

As of February 28, 2014, we have twelve forms deployed with automated workflows. We have six forms that are currently being developed with the automated workflows and ten that are in the review process.

Telecommunications

Telephone Service

Maintained telephone service at a service level of two reports per hundred stations.

Telecommunications Trouble Reports

Responded to trouble reports within 24 hours or less and to service requests within 48 hours or less.

Telephone Switch Upgrade

Installed the latest software version, continue to tweak minor issues due to the upgrade.

Voicemail

Completed the voicemail upgrade due to voicemail system crashing.

Academics Division

Datatel

Arts and Sciences Academic Report

At the request of Dr. Rinehart, IT automated the production of the Arts and Sciences Report. This report contains seven sections with charts and data containing information about faculty utilization, class size, credit hour production and the like. This automation includes the ability to produce this report for specific academic years, and for other colleges.

Student Planning

Colleague Student Planning is a web-based solution that helps students clarify, plan, and track their course of study in order to progress more confidently to a degree. The solution also helps improve the quality of interaction between students and advisors, and enables institutions to map future course offerings more effectively. IT staff and Academics are in planning stages of implementation.

Institutions File Cleanup

Last year, IT became aware of the fact that the Institutions file in our database did not meet certain standards required for the successful launch and integration of Recruiter. Beginning last fall, members of IT met with senior academic administrators and determined that a massive cleanup was required. Over the next several weeks, focus groups worked on the project to determine actual scope and achieved varying levels of progress. In January of this year, a task force was developed that included staff members from various university departments, including IT, Records, the Registrar’s office, and eTroy (totaling nearly 50 people). Over the course of two months, the Institutions file was cleaned and brought into compliance with established requirements. The cleanup was completed with no delay to the overall Recruiter project.

Networking

Wireless Enhancement

An access point was added to an area of Sorrell Hall that was experiencing issues with congested wireless networking. The addition of the access point has corrected the over congested for the time being and we are no longer registering complaints from that area.

Apple Teaching Product

Networking has met with Mathematics to discuss adding the wireless network like the one built for Education for teaching methods specific to Apple products. No decision has been made at this point to populate that to any new areas to date.

Technical Services and eSystems

Biology Lab

On January 6, 2014, Technical Services completed a lab upgrade for Biology Department. The lab consisted of 25 computers that was upgraded from XP to Windows 7 operating system as well as IT setup procedure. Deep Freeze software was configured and deployed in the Biology lab.

Long Hall Construction

On January 10th, 2014, Technical Services met with staff of the Music Department and Howard Computers engineers to demonstrate equipment in the Band, Choral and Dance rooms.
Instructional guides will be provided to staff and in the rooms.

Student Success Conference Room

On January 13, 2014, Technical Services assisted Howard Computers with the install of a projector, speaker system and motorized screen in the Student Success Conference Room. The technology will enhance the meetings within this room with state of the art technology experience during web conference meetings around the world.

IT Lab List

During the month of January 2014, Technical Services updated the IT List of Labs on Troy campus. The list consists of information regarding all labs such as OS version, what software is installed, if using Deep Freeze and etc. This will help the process of upgrading all XP labs on campus to Windows 7.

English Lab

The week of January 20, 2014, Technical Services upgraded 18 computers in the English lab in Smith Hall. An image was created for the PC’s and will be deployed as soon as Deep Freeze has been ordered and received from the English Department.

Portable IT Training Site

On January 27, 2013, Technical Services set up a portable training site for 85 end-users to participate in the Recruiter training.

Malone Hall Lab

On February 14, 2014, Technical Services completed the upgrade from XP to Windows 7 in the small lab in Malone 201. These computers are used by students in the Theater and Dance department and will assist in their studies.

Records Workflow Development (Registrar)

During the week of February 10, 2014, eSystems worked with representatives from Records to develop an automated workflow for the Transient Authorization Form. The form was moved live on February 13, 2014 and published for student consumption on February 14, 2014.

Montgomery Campus - School of Nursing

Montgomery IT recently completed an upgrade of 80 School of Nursing Laptops.

Montgomery Campus - Administration Computers

Montgomery IT recently completed the upgrade of all administration computers to Windows 7 and Office 2010.

Montgomery Campus - Sorrell College of Business

IT replaced 10 computers in the SCOB with new computers containing solid state drives – the first for the Montgomery Campus

Dothan Campus - Malone Hall

Dothan Information Services recently configured replacement computers used by Sorrell College of Business faculty. The department purchased the new computers. The IT staff moved data and configured the computers for use on the Dothan Campus. The twelve old computers have been prepared for transfer to the Houston County Board of Education for use in the local school system.

Dothan Campus - Adams Hall

The instructor stations in two classrooms in Adams Hall have been upgraded with Sony sound system. As part of the upgrade, new ceiling mounted speakers were installed. This enhancement allows better quality sound and music for classes, especially the music appreciation class.

Dothan Campus - Everett Hall & Malone Hall

During this quarter, computer classrooms/labs have been re-imaged with the software needed by students for their classes. Re-imaging is accomplished between semesters and insures that updates and patches are current on the computers. A total of 113 lab computers were re-imaged on the Dothan Campus.

Ft. Rucker - Administrative Building

The computer lab housed in the Troy University Administrative Building on Ft Rucker was re-imaged with the latest software patches and updates. The 21 computers are available for students during the day and used for classes in the evenings.

Telecommunications

Music

Telecommunications moved the telephone lines from Bibb Graves Hall to Long Hall.

Web

Faculty One-Stop Shop

The Web Team is in the process of collaborating with faculty and administrative staff to establish a “Faculty One-Stop Shop”, which will service faculty by delivering important links and an information to faculty from a webpage on trojan.troy.edu. Details regarding the project status will be available at https://itaps.troy.edu. Faculty may submit recommendations by sending comments to webarchitect@troy.edu.

Advancement & External Relations Division

Networking

Recruiter VPN Access

Continued work on VPN accounts for addition and removal for recruiters in the field and looking into issue with SER on disconnects for recruiters at SER locations and what can be done to reduce and/or eliminate those.

Bandwidth Upgrade for Development

IT Networking quote from Troy Cable for bandwidth to the Development Building located on Hwy 231. In the move to the new provider, we are also looking to create a VPN site-to-site tunnel and have all of their traffic come back to the Campus network before going to the Internet.

Technical Services and eSystems

Recruiter SMS Add-On

The PowerSMS feature within Recruiter will allow for text message sends to an entity within Recruiter. PowerSMS integrates the text messaging platform, CallFire, within Recruiter. During the week of February 21, 2014, eSystems began communications in regard to the number of users and estimated SMS messages that will be sent each month. This information was received on February 21, 2014 from all district directors. eSystems also communicated with CallFire in regards to contract pricing, features, and account setup. On February 27, 2014, eSystems participated in a walkthrough of PowerSMS. The application was installed within Recruiter on March 17, 2014.

Recruiter Training

On March 13, 2014, Technical Services set up projectors and screens in the IT Extended Area for the the Recruiter training. This also included power stations at each table.

Web

www.troy.edu Enhancements

IT has been working in partnership with Marketing and Communication to provide enhancements to the www.troy.edu website, including new features as well as an updated template that will provide mobile support. In addition, content that will need to remain available to the public is being migrated from trojan.troy.edu to www.troy.edu. Regular meetings between IT and Marketing and Communication are on-going. Students and employees may submit feedback, or suggested features, regarding the current site by using our Website Feedback form (https://forms.troy.edu/cgi-bin/it/feedback/webwww.pl?Site=WWW).

New Admissions Website

Members of the Web Team have worked side-by-side with Admissions staff to develop a new Admissions website, which was launched in parallel with the new Recruiter system. The need for a new site grew out of changes between the content delivery capabilities of the previous application system (Active Admissions) and the new one (Recruiter). The new Recruiter system is an excellent application tool with powerful back-end capabilities available to Admissions staff. However, it is not a content management system (CMS) and thus required the development of a website to serve as a gateway to the forms available on Recruiter. The site is located at http://admissions.troy.edu. We encourage feedback, which can be submitted via the feedback/comments link at the bottom of the new website.

Finance & Business Affairs Division

Datatel

Synoptix

Synoptix is a self-service financial reporting tool that replaces the FRx software. IT and Accounting services began the implementation of the Synoptix software following the General Ledger conversion. Synoptix on site consulting/training was completed in January. End users are currently working with the software to build new reports.

Networking

TransAct (TrojanCard) Upgrade

Blackboard Card Management System Upgrade: IT has been meeting with Blackboard on the TransACT upgrade. The configuration of internal processes are almost complete, a planned meeting about eAccounts, and discussion about the cut-over process. The planned go live is the week of May 19th - May 23th, 2014.

Inventory

Continuing to work on inventory in updating current list for all Troy IT inventory of products in relation to capitalized equipment, re-organizing categories, standardizing on product, and completing the additional information fields as required by Asset Management.

Softball

IT configured, tested, and installed a new wired and wireless network with physical hardware to assist the athletic department with services related to the Softball complex. All wired ports are presently configured and working while the only remaining part of the project is to finish the installation of the wireless access points in the annex. We have also pushed the wireless ticketing profile to this area for the Athletics Affinity scanning of ID's for students.

Operations

Construction

Whaley Construction has been steadily improving the back of the building by installing a brick façade and a paved parking lot.

Fire Inspection

An annual fire alarm inspection is coming due. Physical Plant has been working to get this scheduled. Current hold up lies in determining whether Simplex or Fyr-Fytr will complete this maintenance.

Electrical Upgrade

A proposal has been generated, and an electrical engineer has been selected. The project is currently up for bid.

UPS Notification Improvement

Attached to the upcoming electrical upgrade, is a project to run two wires between our electrical transfer switch to the UPS systems. This should allow emergency response team members to receive a notification every time the UPS system swaps from utility power to generator power.

Fire Alarm Messages Examination

Messages currently being received from the building’s panel and the Harris Monitoring Center are not clear, hard to understand, or do not match up. We are working with Harris to get this cleaned-up so any immediate emergency can be addressed or danger can be avoided.

Cameras

Harris has been working with Whaley to uninstall and reinstall cameras as needed for the brick façade project. Once the project is completed Harris will come to move or adjust any cameras that may not have the same view as before.

DAC-Units

The DAC unit that caught fire during winter break 2012 has had issues with the fan, after multiple service calls Physical Plant located a replacement fan and no issues have been reported since.

Drills

IT is currently planning out emergency drills. Once construction is complete we will complete a fire, tornado, and possibly active shooter drill. We anticipate for this to take place this June.

Systems

AX Toolbar

The AX toolbar has been installed and configured for the Financial Aid department.

Synoptix

A new server was installed and configured for Synoptix reporting server.

Technical Services and eSystems

Adjunct Contracts Fall 2013 (Payroll Services)

During the month of February 2014, the MegaSign processors continued processing adjunct contracts for Spring 2014. Assistance has been given to the processors when requested. Weekly reports are being ran and sent to Payroll each Monday and as requested. In an effort to increase the percentage of signed contracts, reports are being sent to the processors notifying them of the contracts they still have out for signature.

Application for Travel Approval Workflow Development (Travel Center)

During the month of February 2014, eSystems continued working through limitations that have been encountered with the Application for Travel Approval.

Athletic Training

On February 7, 2014, Technical Services set up five new computers in the Athletic Training Facility in the Stadium Towers. The new PC’s are replacing the XP computers in this area.

Telecommunications

Human Resources

Telecommunications moved the telephone lines from Wright Hall to Hawkins Hall.

Purchasing

Telecommunications moved the telephone lines from Wright Hall to Bibb Graves Hall.

Wright and Hamil Hall

Located all fiber and cable around Wright and Hamil Hall for gas lines.

Alumni Hall

Located all cable around Alumni Hall for construction.

Football Stadium

Repaired fiber to the Football Stadium. Repaired and moved telephone lines from Bibb Graves to Football Stadium Switch.

Softball Facility

Completed telephone/data wire install and moves.

Fiber Install

Completed fiber install from IT to Adams Administration.

Student Services and Administration Division

Datatel

Predictive Analytics Reporting

Troy is a partner with 19 other colleges and universities in the PAR Framework initiative. The PAR Framework offers educational stakeholders a unique multi-institutional lens for examining dimensions of student success from both unified and contextual perspectives. In this multi-year effort, Troy just completed Phase Two, which will allow senior leadership access to business intelligence for the purpose of identifying points of student loss and to find effective practices that improve student retention in U.S. higher education.

Student Home Address

Student Home Address change request are now current. These are now updated twice a day. Backdated entries continue to be updated and are up to date back to Feb. 27, 2013.

Networking

Guest Internet Access

Guest Accounts Logins have been requested and issued to Event Management for incoming groups to access and utilize the Internet from event locations around the campus.

Construction

Networking has received plans for the new dormitory, scheduled to begin in May 2014. The plans will be utilized to spec out networking equipment for technology needs for the building.

Network Consolidation

Networking division is on best method for creating a flat network across all Troy University sites. This will include connecting each campus site back to the Troy location for internal access to servers as well as external access to Internet. In the process, it should create a more agile network for site turn-up or turn-off depending on the needs.

Operations

Helpdesk

We have implemented and trained helpdesk operators on LiveChat within the helpdesk. We anticipate this reducing the amount of tickets and increasing service time to customers.

SS Number Request

Letters were sent out to students requesting that they verify or add their social security number to their records with the University. If the student was a former student, and their email account was not active, we guided them to Anita Walker so a Helpdesk ticket could be put in. If a caller did not know their student ID or username, they were informed to report to the nearest campus to see someone in person to show identification so they could receive their user information. If the student was active, they were instructed to use their active email credentials.

Systems

Pharos - Uniprint

A new server was installed and Pharos UniPrint was upgraded and migrated to the new server. The Pharos system is device-independent system for tracking, monitoring, controlling, and charging for network printing.

Fax Server

A new fax server was installed and configured for Student Financial Services departments. The fax server has eliminated the need to use paper by delivering faxes in an electronic format. So far this year it has received 1573 faxes reducing paper needs by 5565 pages.

TicketTrack

A new server was installed and configured for the migration of the Cardinal TicketTrack system. Tickettrack is a parking ticket management and enforcement solution.

Technical Services and eSystems

ExactTarget E-mail

During the month of February, IT partnered with ExactTarget to replace the existing list management solution. The platform provides an interface to create email templates; the templates are dynamic, allowing for customized delivery to scores of different devices. On February 13, 2014, IT met with ExactTarget to discuss technical requirements and the scope of the project. Thereafter, ExactTarget supplied eSystems with a blueprint which covered account configuration and all other requested requirements. The blueprint has been approved and ExactTarget has begun with account setup and testing. Once this has been completed ExactTarget will provide eSystems with a full solution walkthrough and assistance in deploying two email marketing campaigns.

ExactTarget Mobile Connect (TrojanTXT)

As of March 28, 2014, 2,750 students have signed up to receive TrojanTXT SMS messages.

Transfer Scholarship Workflow Development (Admissions)

During the month of February 2014, eSystems worked on the development of a form that can be used as an awards letter/acceptance form for the new Transfer Scholarship. Work has begun on developing the workflow that will be sent to our programmer for development.

Parature Bi-weekly Meeting (Information Technology)

On February 6 & 20, 2014, eSystems met with our dedicated service representative to discuss the current status of our open tickets with Parature.

Parature Reports

During the week of March 3, 2014, eSystems created two new reports for use by Information Technology.

Master Course Form Workflow Development (IRPE)

On February 14, 2014, eSystems met with Wendy Broyles to discuss the possibility of developing a Master Course Form that could be deployed through an EchoSign workflow. We received permission to deploy this form through EchoSign from Records, but met opposition from the academic councils. Creation of a workflow for this form has been put on hold.

Hampton Roads VA

IT installed and deployed a video conferencing system at the Global Campus Hampton Roads VA site.